Niall had become so absorbed in his thoughts that it came as a surprise to realize that they were already entering the main square. The sun was sinking below the western rooftops; only the top half of the white tower reflected its golden light. Most of the snow had vanished from the square; it remained only on the grass that surrounded the white tower.
As they halted at the bottom of the steps, he saw the two wolf spiders who kept guard on either side of the door. “What are they doing here?”
Dravig said: “The Death Lord ordered them to keep guard. He was afraid that some of Skorbo’s friends might bear you malice.”
“Please thank him for his consideration.” A few hours earlier, the thought of guards outside the palace would have struck him as ridiculous; now they brought a sense of security.
As he entered the main hallway, Nephtys was descending the stair; her smile of welcome turned to astonishment as Dravig entered, with the girl resting in his pedipalps. Sidonia followed, with the child in her arms.
He asked her: “Is the kitchen maid Nyra still here?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Ask her to come here.”
Dravig laid the girl on the matting in front of the fire; Sidonia set down the child beside her. A moment later, Nyra came in, looking apprehensive. Niall pointed to the child. “Is this your brother?”
As she looked at the still form her face became deathly pale; for a moment Niall thought she was going to faint. He said quickly: “He is alive.”
She gave a cry and dropped on her knees beside the child. When she saw that he was breathing, she seized him and covered his face in kisses. Then, to Niall’s embarrassment, she rushed over to him, seized both his hands, and pressed them to her lips. He freed one of them and placed it gently on her hair.
“There. The next task is to revive him.” He turned to Simeon. “What do you advise?”
“Give him a warm bath, and massage his arms and legs.” Niall could sense that he was less than optimistic; but Nyra was too excited to notice.
Nephtys was looking down with curiosity at the girl, whose breast was also rising and falling gently.
Niall said: “She was also destined for Skorbo’s dinner.” His words made her shrink, but he was too tired to care. “I want you to prepare the room next to mine, and place her in a warm bed. The door is to remain locked and bolted all the time.” The sight of her pale face reminded him of the pendant. He excused himself and went down into the basement; it was in darkness, but the light through the open door enabled him to grope his way to the urn in the corner. As he removed the pendant from his pocket, his fingertips told him that it had ceased to be inert; it seemed to squirm like a living beetle. He removed the heavy lid with both hands and dropped the pendant into its depths. As he replaced the lid he experienced a curious sense of lightness.
An hour later, he was stretched out on the cushions in his chamber, eating a dish of river prawns that had just been cooked by Jarita. Simeon was helping Nyra to bathe the child. The sound of excited voices told him that Nyra’s parents had arrived; they had been summoned to the palace. He tried to generate the energy to go and see what was happening, then decided to drink a glass of mead instead. Ten minutes later, as Jarita was laying the table for supper, Nephtys came into the room, smiling with pleasure. “He’s just opened his eyes. . .” She became silent as Jarita shook her head and pointed. Niall was lying on his back, sleeping deeply.
Part Two
The Living Dead
That night was made memorable by another curious experience. Niall woke up in a darkness that was as warm and suffocating as a blanket. For a moment he imagined he was back in the burrow; then the collapse of the ashes in the stove made him aware that he was in his own room. He lay there with all his senses alert, wondering if he had been awakened by some noise. When his sixth sense assured him that he was alone, he threw back the blankets and turned on his back in the velvet darkness, wondering why he found it so difficult to breathe. His heart was pounding and his body was covered in perspiration.
Inevitably, his mind returned to the warehouse with its hanging bodies, and he visualized them so clearly that he even seemed to be able to see them suspended above him in the dark. Even by daylight the scene had been unpleasant enough; now, in the middle of the night, he found himself imagining how the victim felt as a spider landed on him, immobilizing him with its will power, then sinking its fangs into the flesh and injecting the venom that would bring total paralysis. He could envisage how the victims felt as they were carried, fully conscious, to the warehouse, wrapped in a cocoon of sticky spider silk, then suspended upside down, in the full knowledge that they were to be eaten alive. The thought was so horrifying that he writhed as if in pain.
In fact, he knew that it was stupid to be tormented by these imaginings, and that in the daylight they would vanish like a nightmare. Yet even this thought became a kind of torment, for he was aware that the horror was real. Eventually, by using his will power to relax his muscles and slow down his heartbeat, he succeeded in restoring a sense of peace and equilibrium. As the gray light of dawn began to seep into the room, he felt himself drifting back into sleep.
The dream that followed had a curious air of reality. He was standing outside the palace, and the air was full of falling snow; flakes of snow were melting on his cheeks. He was trying to push open the door, but it seemed to be locked. Then he heard footsteps from inside, and someone drew back the bolt. The door opened and his father was standing there. His mother, who was leaning over the balustrade at the top of the stairs, called: “Who is it?” and his father answered: “It’s only Niall. He’s been looking for the magician.” For some reason, this answer struck Niall as incongruous. How could his father know about the magician, since he had died before Niall came to the spider city? The realization that his father was dead made Niall suddenly aware that he must be dreaming. He looked carefully at his father to see if there was any obvious indication of his unreality; in fact, he looked as real and solid as usual. The beard and mustache were streaked with the gray hairs that had developed in the final year of his life, and he was wearing the shabby garment of the caterpillar skin that he had worn on the journey to Dira. The hall in which they were standing also looked completely normal, and when Niall put out a finger to touch the flecked green marble of the wall, it felt cool and solid, exactly as he had expected it to feel. Then he looked down at the floor, which should have been made of the same substance, and experienced a sense of triumph when he saw that it was made of triangular slabs of a stone that looked like granite. This was undeniable proof that he was dreaming. But in that case, where was he? The obvious answer was: lying asleep in bed. Yet when he moved his shoulders to see if he could feel the bed, it seemed obvious that he was standing in the hall. It then struck him that if his body was lying asleep upstairs, the simplest way to find out would be to go and look.
He took a step toward the stairs, then decided that, since he was dreaming, he might as well fly. He raised his arms in the air and rose gently from the ground and up over the balustrade where his mother was standing. Floating on up the second flight of stairs, he alighted on the floor outside his chamber. Inside, he found Jarita laying the table for breakfast; she was so preoccupied that she did not even notice him. He opened his bedroom door and went inside; just as he expected, he was lying in bed, fast asleep, with his left arm lying on the coverlet and his right hand under the pillow. He went and stood by the bed, looking down on his body with a kind of pleased astonishment, wondering what would happen if he leaned over and shook himself by the shoulder: would his other self wake up and speak to him? Then suddenly he knew what would happen: he would wake up and find himself in bed. But he had no desire to wake up yet; the situation was far too interesting. Therefore he stepped back quietly and tiptoed out of the room. Jarita was still so absorbed that she failed to notice him, and he was tempted to give her a pinch; he decided against it in case she screamed and woke him up. He tiptoed out into the corridor.